What's happening with the Dale Farm eviction?

[Teachermumof3]

Does anyone who live locally know what's going on? Have many of the travellers left? Will there be a horrible fight at 9am tomorrow?

What shocks me about this discussion is that there's not one person with an insight into these people's lives or anyone saying ok they were wrong but soe are the councils for not providing enough sites. Instead people think it's rude how travelling people use the NHS and there children go to our schools and it's an absolute disgrace.

The problem is the publicity has all been around wanting to stay on an illegal development, that is never going to garner much support.

If the question is "please support us to save our illegal dwellings after every legal appeal process has been followed & failed" Then my answer is no definitely not, the law of the land must be upheld.

If the question is "please support us to ensure there are enough legal sites for small family groups to stay together so we can be semi-permanently settled in one place so our children can attend school full time and we can more easily access health services." then my answer would be yes.

To many of the settled population it appears that the travellers are pleading special privileges so that the law of the land does not apply to them, that approach will never win friends & influence people.

Genuine question
It is reported that the legal side of Dale Farm is virtually empty, why can't at least some of the families move on to there?

Dalefarmdolly....... So you don't actually live in Dale farm then? Are you a traveller yourself?

My mums family are Irish travellers.

Onagar why has that not been done then if the travellers are all law breakers and there's nothing more to this.

Because we have rules and morals about how we treat people.

I don't actually give a shit about what criminals want. If you don't like the consequences then don't break the law.

There are three judicial reviews to be heard regarding this case next week.

There are some really bizarre misconceptions about the planning system and Travellers on this thread and I speak as a planning solicitor working for an LA, having dealt with applications for Traveller's sites.

1. People underatake development without permission and then apply for retrospective consent ALL THE TIME. What the Dale Farm residents did is by no means, unusual. It is not an offence to do that. I think if I had bought a bit of previously developed land from the Council, next door to an existing site, then I might reasonably have expected that permission might have been granted.

1. Planning enforcement can take years. I ROFL when somebody said that Tesco's wouldn't do this - they are by far and away the worst offenders fighting breaches and threatening costs against LAs.

1. Traveller's housing needs should (and are) assessed in the same way as anyone else's are. What's wrong with allocating land providing a bit of hardstanding for caravans in the same way as the Council provides land for development for social housing? That's not preferential treatment.

1. The reason why there is so much conflict between the Travelling and settled community is that Travellers have to camp in unsuitable sites. Most of the traditional travelling stops are now not accessible. If more sites were were identified for Travellers then perhaps those tensions would ease. My LAs developed 2 temporary stopping places because of Travellers camping in unsuitable locations. We initially looking at 40 + sites. Even though all of these sites were away from residential properties they all attracted a huge level of objection because of who they were going to be used by. During the public meetings we held on the sites comments were made along the lines of "leave them by the road because if some of the kids are killed getting out of the vans at least that will be a form of population control". I wonder why Travellers are sometimes hostile to the settled community .

1. Since the sites have been in use there have been virtually no unlawful encampments or issues between the settled and Travelling communities. The Traveller pay rent on the pitches they occupy, the site is tidy and looked after. As for anti social behaviour, in two years there has been one incident of stone throwing.

Evicting travellers from Dale Farm just moves the problem on, probably to a more unsuitable site, without addressing the underlying issues.

Thank you MissBeehiving. I agree that the misconceptions are very bizarre and having taken the time to read the thread im astounded that some of these ill informed comments come from those who may work with or have access to traveller children or provide care to the community.

Whilst opinions are certainly allowed I am really confused as to why many that express such opinions have not or choose not to fully understand that the travelling people are no longer able to stop on teh roadside and the legal sites available to them is limited. Im also very shocked at comments such as why travellers are called such when they have homes or dont travel all the time??????? surely it can not not be to hard to understand that it is a culture.....the choice to up and leave or stay for a while.....why should that not be allowed or be frowned up on.

Yes the law is the law and to break it is wrong. But I too work for a LA and know and am witness to the issues travellers face when applying for planning.

The point was very well finished by MissBeehiving....the underlying issues are not being addressed.......in my opinion its that travellers are not liked, they are not wanted and are one of the only groups to date that havent been protected by the overzelous PC Police and are openly mocked, disliked and shunned...........now that in my opinion is the true crime.

I thought the difference here was that they had applied for planning permission retrospectively - and it had not been granted. If you get planning approval from a retrospective application all well and good. But if it is not approved then eviction follows - and to then cement yourselves in and refuse to move - isn't that the law breaking aspect of this?

I agree that councils should provide more temporary sites - but the fact that they haven't doesn't, imo, mean that you can just build a site yourself and refuse to move. There are plenty of families, from all communities and ethnic minorities, not housed satisfactorily by the council. Does that mean they can just go and build somewhere and refuse to move?

I listened to the very interesting Moral Maze on Radio 4, and there were some good arguments on both sides - but nobody could come up with any real moral justification as to why the Dale Farm travellers should be allowed to flout planning laws, any more than any other section of society should be allowed to.

MissBeehiving as KouklaMoo says the point surely is what happens after you fail to get permission.

In your professional capacity would you advise clients that "once you have it up and using it they can't do anything about it"

Also since you will have had experience in this area I'd like to ask if you think they'd have got the land for the price they did if there were any chance it was going to get planning permission for this purpose. They have asked £6 million to sell it back which apparently is what they think the same amount of land with development rights would be worth.

MissBeehiving I forgot to mention your point about "addressing the underlying issues"

It may well be we could do more, but that never justifies criminal behaviour. If someone feels for example that unemployment benefit is not enough then many of us might agree. Very few would say "yeah, just go ahead and take what you want - the law doesn't apply to people who are having a hard time"

Onagar - you think that solicitors/barristers don't do that? Not me obviously since I work for the Council There are plenty of the settled community living in developments that flout planning rules in some way whether that's a breach of condition of a permission or some form of unauthorised development. We usually negotiate on it rather than use the legal process which is long and expensive and it's not seen to be a good use of council tax payers money to chuck someone out of their home, unless you're a Traveller, of course

I really am not aware of the details of the land cost but it is previously developed land (apparently Basildon District Council used it to dump tarmac and rubble on until the 1990's), immediately adjacent to an established Traveller's site. Land without permission costs less but tbh, the land value would have been pretty low anyway because of it's former history and it's location.

The site did have temporary permission for a while but since no alternative site can be found for the Travellers they're evicting them.

As for "underlying issues" - we spend millions dealing with these issues in the settled community but provide virtually no support to the Travelling community.

MissBeehiving, you mean some solicitors/barristers might be... dare I say it.. dishonest? :o

Okay, but it's not supposed to happen and I can remember cases where someone who wasn't a traveller added an extension to their house and had to knock it down again because it was illegal. It seems worse with the travellers because it sounds like making them homeless too, but homeless doesn't quite mean the same thing when they were homeless by choice just prior to making the deal.

Imagine if they had checked first to see if they could get planning permission, had been told "not a chance" and moved on. That would not have been making them homeless.

As I understand it the council even offered to buy the land back.

I must add that I think this "We usually negotiate on it" is very wrong. I didn't know that councils were negotiating with people on breaking the law. Morally I see it as no better than negotiating with a mugger or burglar. "oh the old lady you knocked down is better now so no point in making a fuss"?

If people don't like the consequences of breaking a law they shouldn't do so.

If we make a law then those trusted to enforce it should not be allowing people to break it for reasons of their own and should face consequences for their actions too.

t.co/GW1YAHz2

Just regurgitating the same old nonsense.

Just wanted to make one response in respect of onagar's last post - people don't commit a criminal offence when breaching planning permissions or not having planning permission when they move onto land or build an extension, they only do so if the council serve an enforcement notice or similar on someone who has breached planning, they don't comply with said notice (which is breaking the law) and the Council then goes to the mags court to prosecute non-compliance with said notice.

So Council's don't usually negotiate with people who have broken the law, they negotiate with people who have breached planning permissions etc, which is not quite the same. And in a lot of cases where people have breached permissions it is possible to negotiate and come up with a compromise. Councils only serve enforcement notices etc when they haven't been able to negotiate or get someone to submit an application or stop what they are doing and they consider it expedient (i.e. in the public interest) to do so. Not in the public interest to serve notices etc on everyone because in alot of cases (although obviously not all) it is possible to negotiate something that means the resulting scenario is still acceptable in planning terms or whatever has happened isn't so bad that's it's worth taking it further.

sorry for slight off tangent response! Just thought it was useful to make this distinction.

Good link Dalefarmdolly - thought provoking reading. I think Basildon Council are going to end up looking very foolish about this.

Especially since the travellers have obtained copies of council documents showing Len Grindley,s place was built without planning permission and it had to be obtained retrospectively.

NO WAY lol! I didn't know that Len's home was retrospectively applied for. This is all becoming a farce....

Apparently an enforcement notice was issued by Basildon council,he appealed(it may have been his parents who owned it first) and a planning inspector allowed the house but not some sheds.It does put a different slant on things.

Why does that put a different slant on things Bubbles? Genuine question.

bubbles4 That's not even news is it? I thought that came up days ago.
Also I think we established that just obtaining it retrospectively was legal (though imo stupid and wrong)
And of course it has no direct bearing on the dispute as that is between the council and travellers not len and the travellers

Out of interest. What happened about his sheds. I bet he had to take them down didn't he.

maxmissie fair enough about the distinction. I suppose my approval of 'negotiation' depends on what that means in practice. If it means applying the intent of the law rather than the letter that might be okay, but if it means 'can't be bothered to enforce it if it looks like it might mean going to court' then I'd be furious.